


Your Name is Power

by TheMoments (TBs_LMC)



Category: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anders (Dragon Age) Positive, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Romance, Blood Mages, Blood Magic, Canon Bisexual Character, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Circle Mages, Circle of Magi, Custom Male Hawke (Dragon Age), Demons, Developing Relationship, Elf/Human Relationship(s), Elfroot (Dragon Age), Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Falling In Love, Ferelden (Dragon Age), Friendship/Love, Happy Anders (Dragon Age), Healer Anders (Dragon Age), Healing, Help, Justice, Justice (Dragon Age) Positive, Kirkwall (Dragon Age), Leandra Hawke Dies, Logic, Lothering (Dragon Age), Love Confessions, M/M, Mage (Dragon Age) Rights, Mages, Making Out, Male Bonding, Male Friendship, One Night Stands, Past Abuse, Past Relationship(s), Red Lyrium Idol, Rogue Hawke (Dragon Age), Slavery, Social Justice, Spirits, Templars, The Chantry (Dragon Age), The Conclave (Dragon Age), Thedas (Dragon Age), World Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:21:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28245339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TBs_LMC/pseuds/TheMoments
Summary: The pain in Hawke's heart after Fenris' rejection and Leandra's death has brought it to the point where it may shatter irrevocably. The soft, soothing tones, the acceptance and love and obsession of one man, that was what Hawke had craved almost his entire life as equally as Anders had. And thus, in the aftermath of tragedy was born not just a relationship none could tear apart, but a new future unlike any that Thedas could ever have hoped possible.
Relationships: Anders/Male Hawke, Fenris/Male Hawke, Fenris/Merrill (Dragon Age)
Kudos: 5





	Your Name is Power

**Author's Note:**

> They are many. Forgive me.
> 
> This story is set just after Act II of Dragon Age II and slightly alters things so there is a mutual love between Anders and (male) Hawke but the whole “leave your door open” and what that led to didn’t happen before the end of Act II.
> 
> To help set the visuals:  
> My Male Hawke's (on this eleven thousandth play-through, anyway) given name is Vincent, his Mabari is black and red and named Midnight and Vincent wears a lovely elegant-looking black and white outfit as his “pajamas” when at home, rather than the standard one. He has jet black hair styled like Alistair’s in DAO, beard stubble and ice blue, nearly white, almost glowing eyes. He appears deeply tanned/bronzed kind of like Dorian from DAI.
> 
> My Anders has black hair done in the style like Zevran’s from DAO, with faded dark Celtic-like tattoos on his forehead, chin and under his eyes, and bright green eyes. In addition, my attached DAO history includes female Mahariel (given name Zuleika) who romanced Zevran and then, thanks to an awesome mod, married him in a Dalish ceremony at the end of the game. As well, Alistair remained a Grey Warden and both of them lived due to taking the deal with Morrigan.
> 
> Canon Divergence: Warning you now that this story fundamentally alters everything after Act II where Anders and his path forward are concerned, including backstory and changes to what will eventually occur in DAI. I also have some post-Origins thrown in to explain what my Warden and her husband have been up to.
> 
> The title of this fic is a song title. It and the lyrics scattered throughout the story belong to Rend Collective. I know perfectly well the intent of the song from their perspective, but I found that it was simply too appropriate for my ‘Anders x Male Hawke’ so I am liberally applying it with my own interpretation.
> 
> On with the show.

**YOUR NAME IS POWER**

* * *

_You’re the only answer to the darkness_

He hadn’t meant to fall in love with him.

He’d never been in love, not in his entire life. Not that he was old, by any stretch of the imagination. Twenty when the Blight had destroyed Lothering. When Carver had been killed by a darkspawn ogre. When they’d fled on foot, met Ser Wesley and Aveline. Encountered Flemeth the dragon and Flemeth the human. Made a deal with the devil, or so he’d heard Aveline mutter on their journey to the coast where they would take ship to Kirkwall.

Hawke had bedded a few women since he’d left Lothering for his rogue training. Never men. Not for any reason other than that he’d never really thought about it. And then Kirkwall happened. Anders happened, showed an interest, asked if it bothered Hawke that he’d been with men or, specifically, he supposed, Karl. He’d honestly told him he had never thought about it before. Anders had invited him to do so in detail. So there was that interest being piqued.

And then Fenris happened, padding into his sphere, tearing the bloody, beating heart out of a man sent to re-enslave him. He groused and brooded his way into Vincent’s life, touched parts of his heart, pun always intended, that had never been awake before. Stirred parts of his body no man had ever before affected, and in much the same way Anders did.

But the elf was different, like…a dazzlement. Something charmed, such as the times Bethany had made little trinkets sparkle as a teenager, giggling like mad when a necklace would twinkle and glitter and then pouting miserably when the spell faded. That’s what Fenris was: a spell. Everything about him was painful, even his beauty – with his white hair and incredible eyes and his glow…he was almost blinding, like looking at the sun for too long. Pain and angst and loathing and hatred and it was all perfectly understandable, except that to touch him was to bring out even _more_ pain.

After that one night they’d spent together, when Fenris had made the whole entire thing about him and his angst and his foolishness and his need to be happy, well…the dazzlement had worn off. The glow had subsided. The very idea that Hawke’s desperation to touch Fenris’s heated skin, to trace his beautiful lyrium markings, had caused the elf such deep-rooted pain, well, that was something Hawke could barely comprehend, let alone figure out how to deal with.

But the biggest problem was it seemed Fenris hadn’t cared enough about Vincent himself to be concerned about _him_ in all this. Of course Hawke understood, in principle, but Fenris was by far the most consciously and purposely selfish person Hawke had ever met.

Certainly, Merrill was foolish with her demon and blood magic and Eluvian, but she truly in the deep down core of her being believed she was doing it for her clan and for all the elves. She wasn’t doing it to get back at the _shemlen_ who had destroyed her culture, but to reclaim the culture that had been destroyed.

Varric was the most giving soul he’d ever met in spite of how dubious the things he did could sometimes seem. Isabela was deliberately selfish, as he expected all pirates were, but at least when it came to Hawke she always seemed to consider how something made him feel, and would talk to him about it, and then do whatever she wanted anyway. But she allowed him to have an opinion. A say. She cared enough about him as an individual to let him tell her if what she was doing was hurting him or angering him.

Fenris didn’t give Hawke that chance. He was just too wrapped up in his own grief to be able to go beyond his own pain. And in doing so, he had caused Hawke a kind of pain he really did not need to be already feeling when he discovered his mother’s fate.

It all began in the aftermath of Fenris walking out while Hawke was still in bed remembering the elf’s fevered cries as he’d spent himself multiple times throughout the night…the breathless way those pouting lips had whispered “Vincent” as Hawke had buried himself deep inside Fenris’s body, the way the touch-starved former slave had writhed under him that Hawke now knew was because of pain and memories rather than pleasure. And that knowledge _hurt_.

_You’re the only right among the wrong_

Not even three full nights later, he’d taken Anders and Fenris and Merrill with him after hearing that Mother seemed to be missing, to help Gamlen look for her in Lowtown. Fenris because Hawke’s memories of Emeric’s investigation and DuPuis’ descriptions left him terrified and he needed the lyrium-infused warrior by his side because Hawke knew no matter what, Fenris would always be there to save him when he had no choice but to get too close for comfort in order to wield his two blades.

Merrill because Hawke worried that he may require her blood magic knowledge given his earlier conversation with DuPuis about the murder of his sister…Anders because…well, he wanted his healer capabilities in case what they faced was worse than what they could handle, yes, but now he understood that deep down he already knew…was already aware of just how very much that man would come to mean to him, how much he already needed him for things that had nothing to do with his magical capabilities…but just didn’t see it yet.

Because in that moment when he’d cradled his mother in his arms and on his lap on the dusty, straw-covered floor of a dirty, disgusting place full of bugs, urine and feces, and tried his best not to let grief overwhelm him, that was when it had happened. That was when Hawke had seen the distinct difference between the two men who’d originally stirred him equally.

He had thought about this so much in the ensuing years. Fenris and Anders were both extremely tragic figures. Both abused. Both persecuted. Both in monumental amounts of pain. Both deeply disturbed. Both filled with utter hatred for those who either had, or who they perceived as having, hurt them so very deeply.

Fenris had been a slave his entire life. He didn’t even know if he’d had another name besides Fenris, only having been told Danarius had named him that. Fenris had recently learned that he had a sister, but as far as Hawke knew he wasn’t pursuing it because look at all the pain finding old memories had caused after a night of lovemaking. Yeah, unpleasant didn’t even begin to describe it.

Anders had been born a mage, his powers manifesting at an earlier age than most, and had been stalked in the woods one day when he was playing with his magic, having no idea that doing so would get him clapped in chains at the age of nine and dragged away by men and women in shiny silver and white and red armor. He’d never seen his family again. He didn’t know whether they knew what had happened to him. Maybe they thought a bear had gotten him.

But the big thing was that Anders didn’t remember his real name, either, Hawke had finally come to learn. Those in the Circle of Magi he’d been dragged to had taken to calling him Anders once they’d learned where he was from, but the Templars had only ever called him Boy and eventually ‘Anders’ just stuck. But that was a whole different story.

_You’re the only hope among the chaos_

The two men protested so loudly when Hawke once told them how similar they were, simply on opposite sides of the fence. In fact, he rather drunkenly also advised that they embodied the Mage versus Templar war in a way that was somewhat disturbing to him. How badly Hawke had wanted to fully side with Fenris in his arguments, borne of his fixation on him. Wanted to agree with him, and actually did in some ways, but not to the outer extremes that had Fenris hating every single mage that existed. He was cordial to Bethany whenever he was around her, but callously cursed mages as a whole at pretty much every chance he got. He started fights with Merrill and Anders constantly, which had led Hawke to literally having to separate Anders and Fenris physically a couple of times, and eventually not taking Fenris anywhere that he took either Merrill or Anders. It made their jobs complicated, to say the least, and sometimes Hawke had to do without the ideal party because the ideal party simply wasn’t worth the headache brought on by their circular, never-ending arguments.

To be fair, Anders often goaded the elf simply because he could. Hawke privately gave him hell for it. It usually ended with Anders promising he’d try, but he wasn’t responsible if Broody started it. “You’re worse than children!” Hawke had exclaimed, exasperated.

Yes, blood magic was problematic, Hawke thought, but not as a thing in and of itself. It harmed no one unless the mage using it went insane, made a pact with a demon and became an abomination, murdered others to get more blood…or worse. To be honest, Hawke had seen enough of those lunatics to last him a lifetime. But a sword could be wielded to murder people. So could a bow. So could knives and staves and fists and big rocks thrown from trebuchets. The Carta members, the Coterie…they killed plenty of people with daggers and greatswords and longswords and bows and crossbows.

“Just because I can throw a fireball,” Anders had once spat to Fenris, “doesn’t mean I’m going to randomly throw one at you. Though you make it so very _tempting_ for me to do so, I can resist. I have seen for myself that the same can’t be said for you and your glowing hand-in-the-chest trick.”

That had been one of the occasions in which both Hawke and Sebastian had had to pull the men off each other.

So yes, he understood Fenris’s point of view, but Hawke did not see things in shades of black and white. Not all mages were bad or would wind up hurting people with blood magic. By the same token, not all Templars were stark raving mad like Meredith or Karras. Look at Cullen. Look at Thrask. Emeric. Hawke winced. That one still hurt. Badly. He’d developed somewhat of a friendship with the man and to find him dead, to see him left there on the cold pavement, well, that was bad enough.

But what pained Hawke the most was that Emeric’s complete trust in him had led him to being ambushed by creatures he couldn’t hope to defend himself against at his age, especially since he wasn’t expecting hostiles. Emeric never would have gone to a place like that at night, if he hadn’t believed his friend Hawke had sent the message. Hawke growled, yelled, threw the book he’d been reading into the fireplace and watched the sparks shower upward and outward, not caring a whit for the mess he was making in his sitting room.

When had knowing him actually benefitted _anyone_? Both Dumar and his son had died, and if you traced every damn thing that led up to it? Hawke was involved. His own mother? Dead because he didn’t get there fast enough. Carver? Dead because Hawke couldn’t stop him from racing into attacking an ogre. Bethany taken to the Circle because Hawke was in the Deep Roads when the Templars discovered she was a mage, rather than being home where he should be, where he could have spirited Bethany away across the Free Marches, maybe clear to Tevinter, if he’d had a mind to.

Varric’s brother? Locked away, mind lost. Aveline gone from treasured friend to rival just because Seneschal Bran was harassing her about her dealings with Hawke and about mercenaries in general. He’d helped Grace and her friends escape, only to learn from Thrask that Meredith had found and captured them.

Feynriel off to Tevinter, his mother’s heart aching. Would the boy actually be able to master his somniari capabilities or would he wind up killing thousands from the Fade? Bones piling upon ash piling upon the fire that was Hawke, blazing his trail through Kirkwall feeling far too deeply, appearing callous and careless when he was anything but.

And Anders got it. Got _him_.

_You are the voice that calls me on_

There, in that dismal place, with the stitched-together corpse of his mother growing cold, Anders had dropped to his knees next to him, put his arm around his shoulders and whispered, “I’m so sorry, Vincent.”

Hawke had hitched out a sob, buried his face in those feathers he’d always longed to touch since first setting eyes on the mage while he’d been healing a girl in his clinic, and wept. They had stayed there for quite some time, until interrupted by Aveline and several guards. Neither Hawke nor Anders had even realized that Merrill and Fenris had gone off to fetch them.

That night, Anders had remained in the shadows upstairs while Hawke had told Gamlen of Mother’s death. He’d remained quiet and unintrusive as Hawke had wearily climbed the steps, opened his bedroom door, gone inside and slumped down on the side of the bed.

“I know nothing I say will change it, I’m just…I’m sorry.” Hawke couldn’t bring himself to look at him as he approached. “You were lucky to have her as long as you did.”

Finally, Hawke looked up at him and whether from the glow of the lighting, how the candles were placed, whatever it was, Anders looked like childhood tales of angels standing there with his stave strapped to his back, his feathers seeming to move on their own as if he was about to shapeshift into a – well, a hawk – and spirit Vincent away somewhere safe. Somewhere…not here.

“When the pain fades, that’s what will matter.”

Somehow he found his voice. He didn’t want him to leave. _Needed_ him not to. “I appreciate it, Anders.”

The man seated himself next to Hawke, arms touching. Something inside Hawke’s heart felt fragile, like at any moment it could burst into hundreds of shards.

“I’m here for you. Whatever you need.”

That was it. Hawke’s heart finally shattered. He looked into Anders’ eyes and whatever was written in his own caused Anders’ breath to hitch out a gasp. Then he closed his eyes. Swallowed. “I wish…I wish I could have healed her. Made her whole again.”

“That means more than you know,” Hawke whispered.

“I think I know…I mean…would it help if I just…held you?”

Every inch of Hawke’s mind, body and soul screamed, “YES” but he simply nodded and pliably allowed Anders to rearrange him, the bed, the covers and the pillows until at last he watched with half-closed eyes as Anders stripped off the outer portions of his outfit down to his more or less skintight underclothes. Then he crawled back into the bed, arranged them together leaning against the head of it, wrapped his arms around Vincent like it was the most natural gesture in the world for him to make, and held him.

_Louder than every light_

Throughout the night, when Hawke would weep. When he would feel anxiety overtake him. When he would fall asleep only to have nightmare after nightmare after nightmare all featuring his mother’s gruesome end that he still didn’t fully understand, Anders stayed without judgment, without question, without any words but “Vincent,” whispered reverently like Sebastian whispered “Maker” or “Andraste” when praying.

The swirl of Anders’ thumb against his arm, through the thin white fabric of his sleeve. His cheek against his hair, moving subtly to and fro, using his face to caress Hawke’s head. A kiss planted on his hair, grounding him, all grounding him to here, now, not to the abyss of grief that one blood mage had plunged his soul into.

Anders got through every time. No matter how bad it got.

Maybe this…this _thing_ between them…maybe that was how Hawke had gotten past Justice to Anders before Vengeance killed the innocent mage who just wanted to see her mother again.

_Our sword in every fight_

As the hours crept by, all night long, slowly Hawke’s thoughts and dreams began to change, to morph into what he usually did after a day’s worth of battles. He started reliving those they’d fought that day, including all of the skeletons and shades and Maker-knew what else had risen from nothing to take their lives.

“I’m coming!” Anders would yell whenever a sword got past Hawke’s armor, fatigue started draining his reserves or he got into some other kind of trouble on the battlefield. It was frequent enough that eventually Isabela had caught on and asked why Anders only comes for Hawke during swordplay. To which Anders had deadpanned, “It’s all in the wrist.”

Maybe it made Hawke more reckless knowing that Anders was so attuned to him that he’d heal him without Hawke even realizing yet that he’d been hurt. Even he didn’t know how that happened and had never asked because he felt like it would ruin the literal magic of how his team functioned if he probed too deeply.

Yet another metaphor to be explored another day. One that Isabela would no doubt appreciate.

_The truth will chase away the night_

Eventually sleep had claimed him steadfastly and when he’d awakened it had been to no arms holding him, no sturdy shoulder beneath his cheek, no lips kissing his hair, no warm body sharing his space. In the darkness, panic set in, bile rose in his throat. Had he been left _again_ in the space of less than a week and this time without any of the—?

“Whoa, whoa, hey, hey, Vincent,” came a soft voice and instantly Hawke felt every muscle relax but then he was hyperventilating again and just like that, the smell of herbs and embrium soap filled his senses and he thought perhaps he’d lost them altogether and regressed back to childhood as ridiculous as he was being.

“I thought you left me,” he managed to gasp out as he clung to what he realized was Anders’ bare arms. “I thought you walked out like _he_ did.”

Anders stilled completely. “So that’s what happened.”

Hawke froze. He hadn’t intended to say anything to anyone about what had turned out to be a one-night stand.

“I knew something was different,” Anders purred, petting his hair like he probably had petted Ser Pounce-a-lot, come to think of it. Hawke, not that he would ever admit it, didn’t mind it at all.

“You suddenly had a pain in your eyes that I hadn’t seen there before. An...uncertainty. But with all the places we were traveling during our investigation into…well, there was never a time to…”

At least Hawke’s breathing had returned to normal. He clung to Anders, praying he wouldn’t be disgusted with him and just leave. He didn’t want Anders to think he was coming to him for seconds. That he was only there because Hawke’s first choice had fizzled.

“I was obsessed with him,” Hawke finally said without having any idea why he’d done so. He just felt like Anders deserved the truth, especially after all of what he was doing for him right now. “He angered me and yet I wanted him.”

“And he appeared to want you.”

“I thought so.”

Many long moments of silence passed, Hawke growing more and more tense until Anders manhandled him into a laying-down position on the bed, tucked Hawke’s head against his shoulder and began running his hand up and down Hawke’s arm.

“I won’t take advantage of you having had two heartbreaks in a row,” Anders finally said, then kissed the top of Hawke’s head. “Just know that if I were ever here as your man…your lover…you wouldn’t be able to pry me from your side with an archdemon’s jaws.”

Hawke, surprised, barked out a little laugh, snuggled into his…well, probably his best friend, really…and slipped off to sleep.

_Your name is power over darkness_

Anders stayed the entire morning. Sent Bodahn to his clinic with a message that they should send a runner to Hawke’s home immediately if there was an urgent need that all those Anders had trained to care for the patients did not have the ability to handle without him. Asked Orana to bring a bit of food and Hawke’s favorite elfroot honey tea. Asked Sandal to take Midnight for a walk. And when Hawke had finished listening to these things with a smile, he turned in bed toward where he could hear Anders padding back into his bedroom, fully expecting that the mage had gotten rid of everyone so they could do something – even if it was just private talking – that might be problematic or embarrassing with the walls having ears.

Instead, clutching a letter in his fist, his normally placid face bore a scowl. “It’s happened,” he ground out as he began pacing back and forth near the foot of the bed.

“What? What’s happened?” Hawke asked, chest seizing like it had when he’d heard that Mother hadn’t been seen all day. “Where do I need to be?” He hopped out of bed and started searching for his clothing but was suddenly brought to a crashing halt by Immovable Object Anders stepping directly in his path, hands on his shoulders.

“Here,” Anders replied softly. “You need to be here. No sooner had I dispatched Bodahn with the note for the clinic, than a runner brought me this.” He indicated the paper in his hand. “The Templars raided the clinic. Took all five of my healers. Arrested the tranquil I’d helped escape the Gallows who were working for me as alchemists. Shut it all down. Beat a few of the patients for resisting.”

Anders cried out in rage and suddenly it looked like his skin was cracking and his eyes began to glow and he bent down on one knee and grabbed his head, shook it back and forth, rose to his feet with more grace than any cat Hawke had ever seen and…it wasn’t Anders anymore. The process took mere seconds and stole Hawke’s breath away.

“This is the last straw,” Vengeance ground out. Standing this close, Hawke was nearly blinded by the glow emanating from him. “The Templars will pay for this! They will all pay! Now!”

Hawke knew this said so many disturbing things about him, but honestly, he felt like that had to have been the hottest thing he’d ever witnessed, bar none. “Are you Justice any longer?” he asked. “Or have you devolved into Vengeance now?”

“Sometimes, they are not mutually exclusive, human,” the demon replied.

Hawke laid his hand on Anders’ arm. He squeezed it gently. “What happens to the five healers who were taken to the Circle today if you declare war on the Templars right now? The tranquil? Anyone else the Templars arrested?”

Anders’ head tipped to the side for Vengeance to consider the question. Hawke thought, in the logical part of his mind, that he should be terrified beyond reason right now. Yet he felt no fear and honestly, what the hell…let Justice or Vengeance or whatever the void it was kill him now and put him out of Kirkwall’s misery. Who cared? Everyone would get over it, move on, Kirkwall would still stand one way or another and he wouldn’t give a nug’s hind foot about any of it anymore.

“If,” Vengeance replied in a voice that Hawke also found particularly alluring for its dual tones and oddity alone, “the Templars come under attack by any means of magic, Knight-Commander Meredith will call for the Right of Annulment.”

“Exactly,” Hawke nodded, squeezing his arm harder. He had some vague notion this would ground the demon, the spirit, whatever, reminding him – it? – that he was inside a human being right now. “And we know Anders’ healers were taken to the Circle. So that means they would be killed, along with my sister Bethany, along with all of the people that you claim you want to save. All of the mages and tranquil in the Gallows will die if you march out there and start leveling Templars.” Justice didn’t reply and Hawke forged ahead with more confidence, stepping away and walking around, flailing his arms and hands a bit for punctuation, as he was wont to do in a fit of passionate speech.

“Justice means rendering an appropriate judgment upon those who have committed an offense against another,” he began, his mind quite happily moving away from pain, grief and sadness and warming up to the topic he’d been contemplating practically since he’d met Anders when trying to get his Deep Roads maps.

“Vengeance is a punishment. A retribution. It is often the result of justice being served, but does not have to be,” Hawke continued. “Vengeance is emotional, not rational. Justice is rational and justice _must be_ rational, else many lives would be lost in fits of pique.”

Justice did not respond. Nor Vengeance.

Hawke forged ahead, now the one doing the pacing around his bedroom while Anders stayed rooted right where he’d been at the foot of the bed, watching him intently. “Would you agree that justice is both impersonal and impartial? That wanting any sort of revenge is personal and therefore automatically ceases to be justice the moment it is twisted into vengeance?”

Anders nodded. The glow was receding a bit, not quite as bright, and while disconcerting for Anders to appear as though he were a rock getting ready to crack and shatter into many pieces, Hawke still had this highly irrational attraction to what Anders was right now. Yeah, his type of crazy, apparently. He wasn’t sure what would happen if he tried to…that could be addressed later.

“I accept this axiom,” Justice stated.

Hawke smiled. “Is justice vindictive?”

“No,” Justice replied. “That is vengeance. Justice vindicates.”

“Correct,” Hawke agreed. “If you unleash vengeance upon the world, it will perpetuate. It never ends. Lashing out emotionally is good to get those emotions out of you. But it solves nothing. That is not justice.”

“No. Justice is meant to bring closure, and this occurs one time for each injustice faced.”

“That’s what I thought. So when I read Anders’ manifesto, which I believe you had a hand in, I see an awful lot of the two of you wanting to retaliate against the theory of the treatment of mages in Thedas, but I don’t see any methods for meting out justice. That makes no sense to me since you’re Justice.”

Justice – or Anders? – how awkward! – began to move towards where Hawke had stopped near the bedroom door.

“Explain.”

“Well, think about it. You and Anders want to rebel against the way mages are treated in the Circles. His anger over each injustice he has personally encountered or even just heard about has pooled together, like a lake is formed from drops of water, until it has festered into vengeance.” Hawke shook his head, smile disappearing, sad as he considered all that his best friend and maybe, just maybe, a little more than that, had been through in his life.

Hawke sighed, straightened his back and looked into the glowing eyes. “Each injustice must be judged on its own merits or you risk searing flames upon the very innocents you want so badly to save. Anders was taken without any word to his family when he was just a child. But that was done because that is how Templars operate. Seems to me the fault isn’t with people who are following orders, for many of those help mages in spite of the orders they’re given.”

If it was possible for a spirit inhabiting a human to appear intrigued, Justice was pulling it off quite well.

“It’s got to start higher than that. If prejudiced people are in charge of the Templars, then men and women who are addicted to the lyrium that Templars have to take are going to do and say whatever is asked of them because otherwise they will lose the lyrium and their job and maybe even their life. Remember Samson, what he told us about that?”

“I do. What are you suggesting?”

“That you let me have Anders back, and that he and I start talking about this to see what _he_ thinks. To see if _he_ understands the difference between who you really are and who his anger and hatred have twisted you into.”

Justice seemed to consider him carefully, though it was difficult to be certain what with Anders’ entire face lit from the inside. “I have been disapproving of his obsession with you these three years,” he finally said. “From the moment you helped him with Karl, he has loved you.” Hawke’s jaw dropped. “It may be that I have misjudged.”

While Hawke’s brain was stuttering and tripping over Anders being obsessed and in love with him for three years, the glow faded to nothing with very little fanfare as Justice reburied himself wherever it was he went during his downtime, and Anders reappeared as if by magic, looking disconcerted and wearing a frown.

“What…what just happened?” he asked. “Oh…oh, no, did I…was Justice here, did he..?” Anders darted to Hawke and began looking him over for wounds. “Did he hurt you, what…oh, no, no, I can’t…”

“Relax,” Hawke cooed as he might to a child, smiling and grasping Anders’ wandering hands to still them, “or you might just turn me on a little too much for me to answer your barrage of questions.”

Taken aback, Anders processed that for a moment, huffed out a laugh and shook his head. “What happened?” Then he looked, steadily and carefully, right into Hawke’s eyes and whispered, “Vincent?”

_Freedom for the captives_

“Wow,” Anders breathed some time later, after Hawke had relayed to him exactly what had gone down. “So I was wrong. Justice isn’t Vengeance.”

“Not yet,” Hawke corrected. “He’s close, though. I think that you losing control, because it’s brought about by rage, tips him over the edge so all we see out here is Vengeance.”

“And…he _is_ still separate from me.”

Hawke nodded. “That’s the most important thing here. He has his own thoughts and ideas and so do you. You are two distinctly separate individuals, and if the stories you’ve told me about your talks with him back when he was inhabiting the corpse, when you were doing the Grey Warden thing with the Hero of Ferelden, are true? That means we’ve got something we can work with here that will temper both him and…well, and you.”

“Temper me?” Anders frowned, rose from the chair he’d been occupying at Hawke’s desk and swallowed hard. “Are you trying to…change me? Fundamentally alter who and what I am? _Tame_ me?”

“Anders,” he said softly, rising and coming to stand in front of him. He cupped his cheek and Anders’ breath caught as he leaned into Hawke’s palm like a cat seeking affection. Hawke’s heart broke a little for how starved for the most basic of loves Anders seemed to be. “I want to know your real name.”

This caught the mage off-guard. “What? Why? I don’t even know it. Or if I do, it’s long buried inside of me somewhere, locked away.”

“Because,” Hawke replied, “when I explain my affection for you, I want to explain it to _you_ , not to some nickname given to you at the Circle that stole you from your life.”

“You want to…put me back into my life?”

“I want you to be _free_ , Anders. You’re no less captive than Fenris ever was. Yet another thing you two have in common in spite of how you’re always at each other’s throats. I want you to be free to be the man that you are, to love who you want to love, to work toward your goals and ideals in such a way that no one gets hurt and that many people are liberated and that true change comes to pass. But for any of this to have a chance in the void of happening, the first justice that we must mete out has to be for you.”

Anders’ eyes filled with tears. One spilled over onto his cheek. Hawke used his thumb to wipe it away. He leaned in and placed a soft, chaste kiss on Anders’ lips. “Do you understand what I mean?”

The mage nodded. “I’m…I don’t…”

“You don’t need to speak. Just process it.” Hawke stepped away, sighed, threw his hands up in the air. “I’m heartbroken all over the place, for a good twenty reasons at least. I have anger for individuals who have done horrible things like Bartrand and Quentin and Danarius. For my living, I basically kill people randomly all over Kirkwall, always with some kind of goal in sight. But none of it is productive. None of it makes a real difference, not overall.” He turned and locked eyes with Anders. “But sometimes I do make a difference, one by one. Pryce and his sisters. Walter and Cricket. Keran and Macha. Seamus. Lord Harrowmont. And _that_ makes _all_ the difference.”

“But you’re the Champion of Kirkwall!” Anders blurted out. “You saved an entire city!”

“No. I killed one arrogant son-of-a-horned bitch who thought he had the right to shove his philosophy down the throats of Kirkwall’s citizens without their permission. _He_ was the one who was doing the wrong deed. _He_ faced justice and justice was _served_. It was the true application of justice, that’s what saved Kirkwall. I just happen to have been wielding the blades that meted it out.”

Anders leapt forward, grabbed Hawke’s head with both hands and kissed him so thoroughly that Hawke nearly passed out for lack of air. Eventually, when they had both panted enough to have their thoughts straight again, Anders met his eyes, head still held gently yet firmly. “You are the bravest, most brilliant man I know.”

He looked down, as if contemplating something, then back up, smoothing his thumbs along Hawke’s cheeks. “I love you. I have loved you since you helped with Karl…since you saw what I can become, listened to me about Justice and didn’t judge me.” He pulled away and turned his back to Hawke. “I’m sorry if I shouldn’t have confessed that.” Anders laughed shakily. “Justice does not approve of my obsession with you. He believes you’re a distraction.”

“Actually,” Hawke grinned, moving closer, turning Anders around and running his thumb along the mage’s lower lip, “I have it on good authority that he may be in the process of revising that opinion.”

The surprise that registered on Anders’ face was lost to passion as Hawke kissed him in ways that made every hair stand on end, made his toes curl, made him lose his balance and cling to the other man’s shoulders and made him pray in earnest to Andraste and the Maker for the first time, as Hawke led him to the bed, to help him temper what he had become.

If for no other reason, than this man beneath him whose very existence meant more to him than life itself.

_Mercy for the broken and the hopeless_

And the mage underground in Kirkwall grew, shockingly enough, with Fenris helping scout all the former Tevinter slave tunnels and holding pens for use to keep mages safe. He and Hawke never did discuss their one-night stand, but Hawke knew that sometimes it was better to let old hurts go in favor of creating new balms. If wounds were to heal, Hawke vowed he’d be the one to set the example for how.

_Your name is faithful in the battle_

When Knight-Commander Meredith tried to squeeze just a little bit too hard for anyone to take, including her own Knight-Captain, it was Hawke and Anders, and Bethany and Orsino, and Merrill and even Aveline, of all people, who met with Cullen and those loyal to him to discuss what was happening, what could be done, and how Hawke and his companions would gladly help Cullen do it.

_Glory in the struggle_

It wasn’t always easy. That was the problem with changing things. Things changed. People still died. But people got _justice_. They got freedom. Mages began receiving education, not servitude. They began living. Loving. Marrying. Starting families. Helping to corral other mages who’d been driven to desperate acts just as any city guard might collar a regular everyday criminal in Lowtown. And they looked to Anders the mage and Hawke the rogue, watched them, learned from them how to do this in the most peaceful, loving way possible.

Varric finally discovered it was Meredith who’d bought the red lyrium idol from Bartrand. Once he, Hawke and the entire rest of their team had introduced Grand Cleric Elthina to Bartrand, and then surreptitiously removed the sword Meredith had had the idol refashioned into, she’d followed suit descending into madness and joined him in the same hospital, screaming bloody murder all the while. Elthina could no longer keep quiet once Meredith’s insanity was exposed and she traveled with Sister Nightingale to Val Royeaux to meet with Divine Justinia V. It was this meeting that began a series of events that saw Most Holy calling a Conclave for Templars and Mages to unite in discussion.

So much work had been done by a small handful of people in Kirkwall. So much more needed to be done across Thedas. The ball was rolling. Things were happening. Anders’ dreams were beginning, very slowly but very surely, to come true, one Circle, one city-state, one Chantry, one _person_ at a time.

Hawke, for his part, finally felt like goals and ideals were being met constructively. He still had to kill people. There are zealots and blockades everywhere when you’re trying to change things as radically as he and Anders and their friends were. It couldn’t be helped. But it was never random or enjoyed.

Fenris had come over to their understanding of things, though he would probably forever be wary. Which was why Hawke had put him in charge of sniffing out both abominations and Tevinter slavers trying to take advantage of the organized chaos that was Ferelden. Fenris became _proud_. Of himself. Of his efforts. Of his role in the larger ‘them’ that wandered round Thedas helping. And that warmed Hawke’s heart to no end, for he _deserved_ it.

There was also the matter of rumors about him and Merrill that had spun up once Merrill had finally been given an ultimatum: either stop the blood magic-with-mirrors nugshit, or get kicked out of the gang. After all, they couldn’t reform Circles with a blood mage summoning demons on the off chance that it might cleanse mirrors. Dalish or no, that wouldn’t go over well anywhere. It was funny how, once she’d done so, Fenris’ attitude toward her changed. Dramatically. Somewhat sickeningly, if Hawke were hard-pressed to describe it. Never failed to make him grin, though.

_Mighty it won’t let us down or fail us_

Sebastian worked tirelessly campaigning by Hawke’s and Anders’ sides as part of their reform efforts. He brought the Word of the Maker to one and all, helping them understand the Maker’s and Andraste’s views on magic and what that actually meant and how they as the reformers were interpreting it, which was in a way that had never been done before.

“Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him.” Hawke never tired of watching Sebby, as he affectionately called him these days, standing wherever they were gathered in his Chantry robes, hands raised, love pouring forth from his throat as surely as words, as mage and non-mage alike, Templar and guard, elf and dwarf, human and many others who had begun to listen and actually hear, took it all in like Vael was the direct conduit himself. Which, Hawke thought, maybe he was.

“Foul and corrupt are they who have taken His gift and turned it against His children.” It spoke so well of what they were doing, how they were changing the tide where abuse was no longer accepted, no longer the norm. Where individual crimes were judged and justice was observed case by case rather than _en masse_ , as the fancies said in Orlais. “They shall be named Maleficar, accursed ones. They shall find no rest in this world or beyond.”

Anders and Hawke always loved the last part most of all. For the words Sebastian spoke at the end of his teachings each and every time had become the words printed on all of their books and materials that were used to spread the word of the Maker, to spread equality, to spread kindness and true justice across the land.

“All men are the Work of our Maker's Hands, from the lowest slaves to the highest kings.”

Hawke and Anders and those in the gathering who knew how important this was to all of them, saved and saviors, always joined in. “Those who bring harm without provocation to the least of His children are hated and accursed by the Maker.”

_Your name is power_

Varric was now the Viscount of Kirkwall and had his work cut out for him. And he was loving every minute of it. Except maybe for Bran, who drove him crazy, but still. Isabela was sailing the high seas in her own ship, won during a drinking game at the Hanged Man in which she held her poison better than a captain three times her size. But she always changed her course if her friends needed passage. And it was always the best of times when they did.

Cullen had left Kirkwall for parts unknown, though rumor had it that in light of Hawke’s and Anders’ efforts across Thedas, and the fact that Divine Justinia V was organizing a massive Conclave, he’d gone to work with a small band of people who would be tasked with some very special work related to the Divine, depending on what happened at that gathering.

Aveline stayed in Kirkwall to keep law and order well in hand alongside her now co-captain husband Donnic. She ruled the streets of Kirkwall and Maker help anyone who tried _anything_ on their guard. She and Varric worked hand-in-hand to make sure that rebuilding their city-state didn’t cost any _more_ lives than it already had.

Bethany also remained there to take charge of what she called “my children” – all those who were now allowed to return to their families, if those families still lived, but who attended educational classes which included learning how to properly cast spells, control magical power and most importantly, _not_ give in to the temptations of blood magic and demons. She felt as though she had finally found her place in helping magelings learn about themselves and their power and the love of the Maker, and while she knew for certain how proud Vincent was of her, she also felt like maybe Father, Mother and Carver were just as proud, too.

To the surprise of everyone, even the Grey Wardens got in on the act. Led by the Hero of Ferelden, Zuleika Mahariel Arinai, and her husband, Zevran, Amaranthine blossomed into a bustling recruitment center for the Grey Wardens of Ferelden. The recruits being those so inspired by her story and the Champion of Kirkwall’s, and what Hawke and Anders were now doing to help mages and basically everyone that they could as a small army moving everywhere across the map. People couldn’t line up fast enough to pledge themselves to fight what would most likely see at least two more Blights, never mind what lurked in the Deep Roads.

But more than that, they’d been inspired by Avernus’ work at Soldier’s Peak, and by Grey Warden Alistair’s mother Fiona inexplicably losing the taint from her blood, and by Anders, who realized that as time passed with Justice inside of him, his ability to hear darkspawn was decreasing, to find ways to make Grey Wardens be what they needed to be and do what they needed to do without killing recruits, shortening lifespans or sacrificing any more than any other warrior in any other battle might have to.

And that was when Alistair himself re-emerged from no one-knew-where, rejoined the Arinais in Amaranthine and quietly announced that he’d found the way at last for those who had consumed darkspawn blood to _not_ be killed by it. Ever. At all.

Rumor has it that Zevran dropped to his knees on the spot and wept in relief, vowing to Alistair that he was forever in his debt.

And so went the reforms. And the wars, major and minor, to accomplish them. Anders and Justice remained, sharing their body. The names of heroes big and small that spread across Thedas were soon to expand again. For someone from the past, from a time before Vincent Hawke, before Malcolm Hawke…from a time before Kirkwall and the Dalish Mahariel who’d become the Hero of Ferelden…from before any of the Blights, when Tevinter ruled all Thedas…would soon step into the present and wreak the Wrath of Heaven upon it all.

But for the moment, an exhausted couple dropped into an inn room’s bed in some small, nondescript village with a happy sigh, curled into each other and nose-to-nose gazed into each other’s eyes. As they gently, happily, quietly kissed and caressed and just _existed_ together, a name was whispered over and over again into the night…a night happier than a rebel mage like Anders ever thought he could get. Because he was still obsessed. Who wouldn’t be? Everyone has laid eyes on Hawke by now, he reasoned. Right?

“Vincent,” he murmured every time their lips parted. “Vincent.” Another kiss. “Vincent.”

And now that Hawke knew his lover’s secret – because Sister Nightingale had helped them find out in ways she refused to disclose – Hawke whispered back each time, “Hunter.” Punctuated by kisses and a half-sob from his mage. “Hunter Hunter Hunter…”

Anders – Hunter of the Anders – wept with joy.


End file.
